


Burn a Path to the Sea

by d__T



Category: Mad Max(1979)
Genre: Arson, M/M, Werewolf AU, cundalini has the patience of a saint, eating a dude, muddy is a thrill chaser, partial transformations, tags updated as fic progresses maybe, there's porn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-29 10:26:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5124149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/d__T/pseuds/d__T
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything is the same, except Toecutter is a werewolf with a vendetta.</p><p>the werewolf au that goes with the vampire au.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: The Devil and the Wolf

“Hey Buck?”

“Yeah?”

“Listen ta this.” Diabando pushes the portable over towards Starbuck.

“Sounds like the Wolf is coming this way.” Starbuck is gaining the expression that comes just before an excellently bad idea.

“Ya think he’s actually a  _wolf_?”

“Dunno, wanna go find out?”

Starbuck just smirks right back at him as he starts packing up camp. “Ain’t doin’ anything today, mate.”

————————-

Wolves are  _rare_. Perhaps by choice, perhaps because they are hunted. But it comes as no surprise to the bikies that a wolf would be among their number. They have all been driven from polite company for some reason, and the wolves have more reason than some. But they’ve never seen a wolf, not to their knowledge and they’ve got a curiosity about the wolf that nobody can lay hands on.

They commandeer a table to while away the time at with card games. They’ve got no idea when, or even if, the Wolf is gonna come through here, but he’s burned a swath through the countryside and this town is right in his path. Which would explain why they’re getting death glares from the townspeople, really.

————————-

The first motorcycle over the rise in the road look like it’s alone, engine beyond the edge of hearing. And then it’s flanked by two more, and then the rest of the pack comes into view. There’s a  _lot_  of them and they come down the street all formed up like they’re gonna blow through. But they swing around and back up against the curb and with one last unison rev, they shut down their engines. All at once, and the silence left in the wake is unsettling.

Soon enough it is broken by whoops and the clatter of men dismounting. They’re clearly here for  _something_  because the bikies mill about in the vicinity of their bikes but don’t stray far while a tall man strides off, flanked by an ice blond in all black and a barefoot man.

Bando plays his hand of cards without looking at it, eyes fixed on the trio until they disappear around the side of the building. The point, the one with the pelt across his shoulders and the wild mane of hair, that must be the Wolf. The other two, their reputations do not precede them.

He makes the mistake of looking back to his cards, only to find that Starbuck has dragged him for a week’s worth of food acquisition and prep. 

————————-

The barefoot man and the blond return, a crate slung between then. The rest of the pack swarms them, tearing the crate open and passing around the contents. It’s hard to tell what it is since the backs of the ones on the outside of the cluster shield the goods from view, but it might be armaments of some kind. In the middle of this all, the tall man returns and the cluster scatters all across the street and storefronts. They’ve gotten what they came for, and now it’s playtime.

Starbuck puts his hand of cards down with a particularly careful suddenness, and Diabando turns to find himself face to face with the maned man.

He looks so very human, and simultaneously completely feral in a way that not even going unwashed for weeks could create. At that, he stinks, a rank of weed and blood and ash and dog. His eyes though, are focused behind Diabando.

“What’re you lookin’ at?” It’s not addressed to him, and that means this is already going poorly. He turns and Starbuck looks grim, so he answers instead.

“Your crew. Very organized.” He pauses, then decides to be brash. “We’ve been looking to join forces with somebody for a while now.”

There’s no lie in that, but somehow Diabando knows he’s gonna be doing more than butchering roadkill for a week to keep this under control. The thought leaves his mind when the maned man turns his attention to him. The intensity of his gaze inspires a thrill of fear even before the man’s hand grips his face. And that’s what it is, a thrill. It’s been a long time since Diabando’s been afraid of someone.

“What’s your name?”

He’s critically aware of the thumb caressing his cheekbone, the clawed nail nervewrackingly close to his eye.

“I’m Diabando, m’mate’s Starbuck.” He’s proud of how steady his voice is.

“A little devil and his chief mate.” There’s an implication in that sentence somewhere, and he can feel Starbuck start fuming behind him but there’s nothing he can do about it. So he nods against the hand pressed against his face.

“And what would you give me?”

Diabando swallows, but Starbuck beats him to actually speaking. “Contact network. Two smugglers with good rep. His silver tongue. My knife. No morals but good honor.”

His face is released with a laugh, and he looks up to meet the man’s eyes. Whose features are distorting, teeth and eyes and bone structure and he is so very clearly not human.

“Will you follow me, and obey me?”

This time he beats Starbuck to speaking. “Yes.”

The Wolf smiles, an elongated grin with far too many sharp teeth. “Good.”

He calls for a man named Bubba, not raising his voice, but simply projecting. And in moments, the ice blond appears at his right hand and gives the two men and their ragged cards a disdainful look. And then gives his boss a look as if to say, “Really? These two?”

The Wolf grins at him, no less unsettling for being fully human again and tousles Diabando’s hair. “His name amuses me. You know what to do.”

————————-

He comes up behind his mate, and slips his arms around him. Buck’s a little taller, so he rests his chin on his shoulder. “You don’t like him.”

Starbuck leans back against him a little. “He called you the devil.”

“That’s my name, yeah.” Diabando resettles his head against that shoulder. “Ya don’t like him because he’s a  _wolf_.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“sure” He pats down Starbuck’s pockets, and steals a cigarette. “A gang will be good for us, bigger targets. ‘Sides, we ain’t done arson yet!”

He tips his head away from Buck’s so he can light the cigarette without singing his hair. “Not like we have a choice, right now.”

“An’ whose fault is that?”

Bando blows a stream of smoke past his ear. “You know you love this silver tongue of mine.”

Starbuck snorts, plucks the cigarette from between Diabando’s fingers and takes a drag. “sure.”

He steals the cigarette back. “Look, if it doesn’t work out, we can get left behind.”

“He will eat us.”

“I am pretty sure he won’t.”

“You can’t say that.”

“Bubba said he wouldn’t. s'good enough for me.”

“Bubba’s the Wolf’s  _bitch_. He’ll say anything.” Starbuck steals the cigarette again as Diabando shrugs against him. He doesn’t say anything to that. He knows they can go back and forth all night, but he’s not in the mood for that.

So he turns Starbuck in his arms, and breathes the smoke from him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “His forces destroyed military targets as well as industry, infrastructure, and civilian property and disrupted the Confederacy’s economy and its transportation networks. Sherman’s bold move of operating deep within enemy territory and without supply lines is considered to be revolutionary in the annals of war.”

Bubba was there the first time the man who is now known as the Wolf across a continent said “Fuck that.” and had a plan to back it up.

He was nobody then, both of them nameless and faceless in the eyes of the world. Hands held out across the fire, the next day’s haul already loaded in the runner truck with Bubba marking it down for record.

“They shorted us again.”

He snorts and flexes his hands against the fire. Curls his fingers in, and then stretches them out wide and lets his claws form and his bones stretch.

“Fuck that. I’m gonna get the difference. They will pay us.”

“They will kill you.”

“They think they know what I am. They think that means they can disrespect us.”

Bubba nods. This is not the first time they’ve been shorted, or underpaid.

“No longer.”

Toecutter stands and strips his clothing off, rolls the bundle of it up in his jacket. He stretches against the cool air, settling his bones and lets the wolf rip through him. He falls to his paws as his body contorts and shifts. Bubba doesn’t even blink, but he’s the only one who knows this for certain about his mate.

The wolf by the fire shakes himself off, pelt rippling, and then he trots over to Bubba and very gently bites his thigh. He can’t run as fast as their bikes hidden in the scrub out here, but he is far far quieter in this form. So he covers ground, near invisible in the dark until he pads to a halt on the perimeter of the barn that they picked up their cargo at earlier. He can smell two guards, one with a cigarette. They smell like the right gang, smells the reek from the house. This will be easy, and he makes his posture like that of a stray sniffing around for handouts. Unconcerning, unalarming until far too late.

“Woa, you’re a big dog! Hey, whatchya doing around here? C'mere!” The man with the cigarette crouches down to his level and extends his hand for Toecutter to smell before he moves to scritch him about the ears.

“Mate, I don’t think that’s a dog.”

The wolf yips at them  _damn straight I’m not a dog_  and the man with the cigarette is withdrawing his hand. But he’s too slow, and the only thing that saves teeth from grinding into the bones of his arm is his jacket. Hands shove the man down under his paws and he leaps for the other man’s throat. The man tries to push him away, but elongated canines are lodged in his throat and Toecutter pushes him over backwards. He lands on the man, claws digging into his chest and belly, and yanks the man’s throat out. Thick and hot arterial blood fills his mouth and drips down along his jaw, and then he’s loping off after cigarette-man.

The door of the house slams open, a head and the muzzle of a shotgun poke out just in time to witness a wolf take the man in the yard down with a sickening crunch of bone. Ribs, probably, but Toecutter runs right over the man, heading straight for the man with the shotgun.

He leaps the stairs, graceful, and slings his slender wolf body through the door as the shot sprays wide over his head. The man hits the floor face first, impact loud in the growing wave astonishment radiating out from the door. Wolf forced back down inside himself and ass parked on the back of the fallen man, Toecutter scoops up the shotgun from the floor and checks it with his newly returning fingers.  _One shell left_.

The captain of this gang shoulders his way through the crowd. “Oi, wha-”

Toecutter snaps the shotgun shut again and jams the barrel of it against the neck of the man he’s sitting on. “I came here to pick up the rest of my cargo. You-” He digs the shotgun in as the man underneath him squirms, clearly unhappy about being sat on by a naked and bloody werewolf “-shorted me.”

“You can give me the rest of my cargo, or you can try to stop me from taking it.”

With spectacular timing, the door behind him opens and a man clutching the bloody arm of his jacket stumbles in. The man starts yelling about the big dog that attacked them. The captain frantically tries to shush him, but is derailed when Toecutter makes eye contact with him. Without blinking, he extrudes an inhuman length of tongue and licks blood from his lips and chin.

A couple of the men in the crowd look among themselves and quickly escort their wounded brother away. Another man hurries out through the door at his captain’s whisper. And then the captain himself approaches, nervousness hiding in his steps.

“What makes you think we won’t just kill you?”

A gunshot sounds from outside, followed immediately by the sound of a body hitting the gravel. There is no scream, no sound of pain.

Toecutter stands smoothly, as if that was his cue. His clawed foot remains on the back of the downed man’s head and the captain has to look up to meet his eyes. “I’ll be taking my cargo.”

The captain nods. A few of the men behind him shuffle like they disagree, so Toecutter gives them the sweetest of blood flecked smiles. They will either tear themselves apart, or unify against him. Either way, the captain’s days are now numbered in the single digits.

Appropriated shotgun in hand, he heads outside. Bubba is there with the truck, and his clothes. The difference of cargo is already loaded.

————————————-

He bounds down from the cab of the truck, the bundle of his jacket between his teeth and the brown of his fur near invisible in the moonlight. Bubba finds him by the fire, head on his jacket and close enough that his whiskers would singe were it not banked.

“Back there. You started a war.”

Bubba is not accusatory, he makes a statement as he sets to waking the fire.

Toecutter shifts, and dallies with putting his shirt on. “They were complacent, and afraid of an uncertainty. It is good for them to be certain.”

“They will try to exterminate me. And you, for being so close to me. So we bring the war to them.” He’s never fully human around Bubba, despite his eloquence. The wolf shifts constantly in his flesh, restless and pulling at his skin.

“We make the run tomorrow. Show me your maps again.”

Bubba fetches the flat case of maps and opens it across their knees. Together they plot a path from their delivery point and through towns and territories controlled by others who had shorted them.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “He would never, but he has the desire.”- najanaja

The men they meet to make the delivery pay them in full. It is unclear if they know the events of the night before, but information spreads faster than disease and if they don’t already, they will soon. And so, Toecutter makes sure to be kind to them. They will need allies in the coming firestorm.

———————-

That night, there is a lull. Two things to do, and only one place to be.

The house stands before them in the dusk, tall and ratty. Windows nailed shut, and the locks broken open. Behind them, in the field, stand their bikes hidden among tall grasses. And beside their feet, gas cans.

Toecutter kicks the door open, a solid blow from his boot slamming it back on its hinges. Bubba leads, lines up his gas cans on the counter like jugs of milk and turns to take stock of the house.

It’s filthy, dilapidated, exactly what it looks like from outside. The windows on the first floor have been blown in, glass scattered across the floor and undisturbed by whoever boarded over the windows. What furniture remains is rickety and uncertain of itself. They don’t venture to the second floor, the risk posed by the stairs unnecessary to their aims. For all its faults, this house is important. An ideal location, an isolated midway. There are eyes upon it, men jockeying for position to claim it. But none of them are here  _now_.

“‘Cutter.” Bubba is leaning against the counter, a taught relaxation. Nearly invisible in the depths of the darkness, except for his skin and his hair.

Toecutter turns, and wonders momentarily what it’s like to not be able to see in the dark. But it’s Bubba’s stillness that makes him nearly invisible to his eyes, not the darkness. “Bubba. We have time.”

Bubba breathes, deep and steady. Toecutter can see, he would swear it, through the man’s black jacket and shirt, through that pale skin, through to the meat and the bones and the blood that house his greatest possession, his greatest ally. His mind flicks to the last time he took a heart between his teeth, let the blood mat his fur, gulped it down and he can feel the rush of it in his mouth and groin.

“We have a job to do. We do not know when they will come to claim this.”

He steps forward and presses his hand against Bubba’s chest, between the crossed lapels of the jacket. “They will not come tonight.”

Bubba’s heartbeat is strong under his fingers. Intoxicating, paired with the memory-feel of the heart in his mouth. His teeth feel bright against his tongue, brighter than the cold fire under his hand, he simply can not resist anymore.

He drives his leg between Bubba’s, and pulls him by his jacket, by his shirt, by his heart. Under his tongue, teeth against his man’s throat, he can feel that steady pulse accelerating and he wants nothing more to sink his teeth in and pull until the blood washes across his face. But that he can’t have, so he shoves Bubba’s jacket until it traps his arms.

Bubba frees his hands despite Toecutter’s warning growl and surges up to take a kiss. Tocutter bites back, bites at his tongue and his lips until he bleeds, until Bubba tastes the heat that drives his lover mad. He moans, then, made subtle by the clawed hand wrapped around the back of his head.

Bubba goes willingly, perhaps eagerly, when Toecutter shoves him up onto the counter, back against the wall and broken glass no longer grinding under his boots. He wraps his legs around Toecutter’s waist and pulls his ass tight against his Boss’s hips and rubs down. 

Toecutter’s fingers are not so good at zippers anymore, it’s Bubba who undoes their clothing. He scoots so he’s got enough room to pull forth Toecutter’s cock, strokes and pulls it hot and firm in his hands before shoving his own pants down far enough to sling his legs over ‘Cutter’s shoulders. 

He slicks his fingers, opens himself up for Toecutter. Teases by doing it so close that his fingers knock against that cock, so close that it brushes against his hole until Toecutter growls and pushes in regardless of his fingers. Bubba’s head falls back against the wall, exposing his throat and that’s a gift Toecutter can’t take right now as his eyes slide shut in pleasure.

Bubba takes his cock in hand, tugging in time with 'Cutter’s thrusts. He pushes himself hard and fast. He could take it slow, but he’s pushing as hard as Toecutter is fucking into him. It’s raw and fast and he comes quickly into his hand. But it only throws Toecutter off his rhythm for a moment so he scrapes his hand off and braces himself a little better.

The overstimulation takes him quickly, and it’s the sound he makes somewhere between pain and pleasure that throws ‘Cutter over the edge with a grunt and a judder. 

Cutter tips forward to rest his head against Bubba’s chest, tongue out from exertion. Bubba sinks his hands into that mane of hair and scratches his scalp and behind his ears gently. A small affection. Soon enough, they right themselves with a casualness that beguiles their ferocity from earlier.

Together, they pour the gasoline along the baseboards of the house. Soaking it in and running it up the walls. The fumes boil off the spill and sting their eyes in the enclosed space. Cans emptied, Bubba lays the trigger, a spark on a switch, and shuts the door behind them.

He walks, pulling the trigger wires with him, while Toecutter turns to face the house to mark it as his for the moment it still stands. He pisses, a hot puddle clumping dirt across the path to the door of the house. And then, he retreats with Bubba to the safety of the tall grasses and their bikes.

He places his hands over his ears as Bubba flicks the switch.

A moment later, the house detonates. The walls of the lower floor simply blow out and the hot shockwave rolls over them. As the second floor collapses in, it catches properly, and the burning plume of dust and soot coils into the sky for all to see.

———————-

It’s several days before the first skirmish. Long enough for it to be expected, the discomfort of it not happening yet settling in Bubba’s back and itching behind Toecutter’s ears. And when it comes, it is like a summer thunderstorm: short and ugly. An unseen spotter, perhaps, along their route, or an unusually astute man with a map and a prediction. Four men come out of the dark with knives and maces as they’re setting down to eat.

Like lightening, Toecutter rises to meet them and Bubba draws his weapon. A wolf growl from a human throat and three gunshots later, the dust settles around their feet.

One by one, Toecutter sinks his teeth into the bodies and drags them out of the camp as Bubba calmly reholsters his Mauser and collects his plate again. He calls after the wolf, “They upset your plate.”

So the last body is instead dragged into camp. Toecutter noses aside the jacket and the shirt and eats from the corpse of their assailant.

In the morning, the torn and tooth-marked body is left by the road with a spray of dirt from their wheels dusting it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter right: Cundalini and Mudguts, pursuing a wolf.

“Why are you here?”

“You’ve got a reputation.”

Toecutter smiles the smile of a man who knows all the nasty things that are said about him, and enjoys it. And asks again. “Why are you here?”

The smaller of the two men is nearly vibrating with energy; not fear or tension. “Wanna join up with the wolf!”

He can see the red-dressed man internally face-palm like they’d figured out what to say some time before, and the smaller man had just deviated wildly from whatever they’d agreed on. So he gives them an appraising look. And an appraising sniff.

“He wants me to fuck him.” It’s not the first time he’s smelled that on someone, but usually there’s a layer of fear and loathing to it. These two only smell like enthusiasm and mild exasperation on top of the usual bikie stank. “What do  _you_  want?”

The tall man sighs. “I want him to shut up about werewolf cock.” He shrugs. “We want to join your crew. We’re, uh, between gigs right now. Got some information for you too.”

“Names?” Toecutter holds his hand out like he’ll receive a physical object.

“’m Mudguts! He’s Cundalini.” The energetic one extends a finger and brushes it along Toecutter’s palm. Toecutter’s fingers close around the touch, claws catching his skin as Mudguts pulls his finger free and brings it to his lips to lick the faint scratch.

“Mudguts. Cundalini. Eat with us.”

Over food, Cundalini explains what they know. “Civvies are startin’ to call for your …aprehension. They like that you’re killing off other ‘criminal elements’, but they’re worried that you’ll turn to them. That house made them nervous. The Bronze are kitting up to sweep for you in three weeks or so.”

“Do they think they’re gonna get me?”

Cundalini shrugs. “They know that if they don’t get you the first time, you’ll eat them. They’re more motivated by that than the civvies.”

“Bubba, how close do we come to Central?”

“Oh…” Bubba closes his eyes, draws arcs among his fingers. “A week and a hundred-kay.”

He opens his eyes. “'Cutter, we are not going to war against the Bronze. We do not have the men for that.”

Toecutter addresses Cundalini and Mudguts like he’s an interviewer. “How do you feel about firebombing the Bronze?”

Muddy cackles maniacally and a wicked grin splits Cundalini’s face. “Feel pretty good about that!”

“How many men do you think will follow the wolf?”

A unison shrug.

Bubba interjects. “Find out. You will get your payment when you return.”

Toecutter nods in agreement.

“Fuck you, pay me now.”

“Muddy  _no_.”

“Suck my dick.”

Muddy is on his knees so fast that Cundalini is the only unsurprised one.

———————————-

It is four days before they meet again with Cundalini and Mudguts. The time is used to scope out a target and arrange munitions. They will hit a police station, and weed the weak and the uncertain from the number that Cundalini promises them. The rest will become loyal through battle.

———————————–

On the fourth day, Toecutter smells them coming well before he can hear their bikes. The munitions are arranged, the plan of attack is in order. Now, they just need the men to do it. Cundalini and Mudguts deliver; 15 men to meet them in the next town early the next day. They’ve been promised glory, and pig hunting. 

Mudguts reeks of anticipation and arousal by the end of their report. He’s not talking much, it’s Cundalini giving ‘Cutter and Bubba the run-down of what’s been arranged as he fidgets under Cundalini’s calming hand. It’s late in the afternoon though, late enough that Toecutter invites them to make camp with them.

Bubba shoots him a sharp look as he stands, but nods. It was agreed. Muddy’s eyes follow Toecutter’s languid stretch, fingers unconsciously stroking his thigh. And then, Cundalini tugs him up by the back of his vest. “C'mon, let’s make camp before nightfall.”

Toecutter sheds his jacket and shirt, giving Bubba a distorting smile and then steps after Muddy. From behind, he captures him with an arm suddenly hooked around his throat and the other across his belly. Reflexively, Muddy fights back, squirming and trying to bite Toecutter’s bare arm.

“Shh, Mudguts.” The voice is inhuman, a mockery of what could have been soothing words. Toecutter picks the smaller man up, only to throw him down a little away from his bike. Muddy coughs and scrabbles, trying to right himself, but the wolf pounces on him and shoves his muzzle up under Muddy’s chin.

Muddy obligingly tips his head back and outright moans when Toecutter takes his neck between his jaws. The long canines press sharp against the sides of his throat, but Toecutter does not take his throat. Simply leaves him with wet raw scratches and the threat that he could have when he pulls away.

Muddy knows exactly what he wants and undoes ‘Cutter’s pants and pulls his cock free before shoving his own pants down. Toecutter rolls him onto his front, pawed hands rough but Muddy goes willingly and doesn’t even have to be yanked to shove his ass up in the air, up against 'Cutter’s crotch. He ruts back, forcing 'Cutter’s hard cock along his ass. Moans, loud and lewd. They slide together like that a moment with Toecutter caging Muddy underneath his constantly shifting body. 

Toecutter grips his cock in a spit slicked hand, lines himself up and forces himself in. Muddy makes the crassest of sounds; pleasure bred from pain and anticipation.

Toecutter sets the pace hard, and Muddy pants along with it as doglike as the man fucking him is wolflike. He braces elbows and shoulder against the ground nearby paws, and still sometimes skids.

Cundalini’s watching, nonplussed by his mate getting fucked raw by the wolf. He winks when Toecutter catches his eye, and presently goes back to setting up his and Muddy’s tent.

Muddy comes with a stuttered moan, suddenly and without warning, slicking the ground beneath him. He shudders, clenching tightly around the cock in him and Toecutter jerks, but carries on. He can feel the growing knot pressing against his ring with every thrust and regardless of the orgasm he just had he pushes back, trying to seat Cutter all the way into him.

Toecutter doesn’t let him, pulling away when he comes so that the knot locks outside of Muddy’s tight ring. It is not for him. But it’s close enough that the sudden swell burns him, hurts him, and he comes again through the pain.

Toecutter pulls back onto his haunches and shifts human as Muddy rolls onto his side, panting and twitching. Calmly, he puts his cock away and pats Muddy’s ass before standing and walking away.

Cundalini collects a nod from Toecutter and retrieves Muddy from where he’s making garbled word-sounds back to their tent.


	5. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mudalini aftercare fluff.

“’lini!” Muddy wraps himself around Cundalini’s boots, effectively hobbling the man.

“Muddy!” He bends and pets Muddy affectionately. “Hey there!”

“Hmm, up you get.” But Muddy refuses to get up, only unwrapping himself from around Cundalini’s boots a little. So Cundalini gives his boyfriend’s clothing some semblance of proper order and simply drags him to their tent by his ankles. Muddy protests and laughs, but submits to it with only a minimum of struggling.

Once inside the tent, Muddy immediately rolls himself into his blanket and throws himself across Cundalini’s lap. Carefully, ‘lini unrolls Muddy a little, and tends to his scuffs and scratches and bruises. By far, not the worst he’s sustained picking fuckfights like he does but he’ll without doubt be walking funny for a little while. 

While he’s cleaning him up, he makes Muddy drink some of the water. Who slurps it and spills a little on his blanket before giving the canteen back. Cundalini kisses him and wraps him back up in the way that keeps him from moving around so much and pets him until he passes out.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roast Pork

There’s fourteen men waiting for them in the town. Wherever the fifteenth one went, he was left behind. Bubba takes their names and stock of their weapons, and Toecutter promises them glory and not much more.

The walls of the police station make it clever. A system designed to keep the rabble in, but in this time of decline the rabble don’t want out. It’s unfortunate, really.

A wolf walks through the unguarded gates. Alone, and proud. A wolf nudges the door to the building inside the walls open. The Wolf strides through the station, and puts his front paws up on the only occupied desk and _shifts_  until human words can form in his throat.

“I was told that you are looking for me.” No human can smile like that.

The officer tries to shout for help, tries to run for the radio. Toecutter jumps the desk and knocks the man over backwards, landing on his chest. He makes fearful noises, pleads with the wolf. Toecutter’s always known what Bubba means with his disgust for the burbling endless pleading that comes from those who kneel before the gun, but his pleasure comes from the spurt of blood and air when they cease it.

But he hears boots coming running, so he stands to his full human height and grips the struggling profaning officer like a shield. The other officers won’t shoot through a comrade to get him. He stuns the officer, and slings him over his shoulder. The dead weight is staggeringly heavy, but he turns his back on them and leads them to the gates.

Bubba signals the hired rabble, spotters down the perimeter passing the message all the way around, and they surge through the gates like a monsoon. The wave destroys all before it, an overturning merciless flurry. It strips away the officers itching at Toecutter, spirits off the persuit vehicles, spits mocking words into the dispatcher’s radio.

Toecutter walks from the madhouse with a serenity than a Buddhist monk would envy, and sets the officer down beside the glass and broken metal scattered road. The officer, numbered but not named, struggles into wakefullness as the first plumes of smoke rise from inside the walls. He threatens and blusters, tells Toecutter that the rest of the Bronze will come for him, that he will be crucified for the public.

Toecutter smiles at him, gentle and pleasant. He takes the officer’s face between his hands like a lover and tells him. “You will carry a message to them for me.”

“Never.” The officer spits in Toecutter’s face.

The change is instant. He stands and slams his knee up under the man’s jaw. His head snaps back and lolls there, limp and disconnected.

At the gates, he shouts, the men inside shouting back. Perhaps reluctently they stream from the gates, but the buildings inside burn merrily. The front gates are pushed shut after the last scag dashes out, a motion protested mightily by the hinges. The bar for the gates is gone, so a scrap of rope does to hold them shut.

Toecutter requisitions a pair of recently stolen handcuffs from one of the men to augment the ones on the dead officer slumped by the road. One manacle goes tight around each wrist of the officer. Together, he and Bubba haul the body to the barred gates and hoist it high, high enough to lock the manacles around the crossmember of the gates. They step back and the body hangs from outstretched arms, backlit by fire.

The pack shouts and jeers. This is  _good_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Arson and crucifixion.


End file.
